


Swarm Their Fates

by ivyfic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Episode Tag, Episode: s02e17 Heart, Gen, Meta, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-20
Updated: 2007-04-20
Packaged: 2017-10-16 21:57:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/169766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyfic/pseuds/ivyfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU ending to "Heart."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swarm Their Fates

**Author's Note:**

> Very quick and un-betaed. It was either write a thousand words of meta on "Heart" explaining what I would do with the end of it or write a thousand words of fic. I chose the latter.

Sam ran his thumb back and forth over the grip of the gun. He looked pleadingly at Dean. "We can give her 'til sunset. She won't change before then."

"Sam, we barely understand how this works. We can't be sure—"

"Dean. She has parents. Just a few hours so she can prepare." Sam looked back down at the gun in his hand, then towards the living room where Madison was waiting for her execution.

"Sam, you don't have to do this. I can take care of it," Dean said, his voice barely above a whisper.

"I'll do it," Sam repeated.

"Dragging this out won't make it any easier."

Sam clenched his jaw, then went to tell Madison she had a few hours left.

~*~

When the sun started to set, Sam felt like he'd spent the whole day slowly having his skin grated off. He had to do this, he knew that. But why did it have to be _now_? He could wait a few minutes.

Dean paced back and forth through the entryway of the apartment. He'd suggested taking Madison out under the highway overpass to do it, but Sam had refused. That was too calculated, too much like what a murderer would do. It didn't matter that they were too exposed here. He couldn't think about that now.

What was the exact moment when day turned into night? If Sam let night fall it would be too late, but before that he'd be robbing Madison of the little time she had left.

Madison sat utterly still on the couch, her eyes fixed on Sam, following his movements. She looked drawn, weary. Earlier in the morning she'd been ready to end it, to escape from the evil inside her. Now she didn't look as sure.

When the streetlights flickered on outside the windows, she looked up at Sam. "I don't want die."

They locked her in the closet that night and waited.

She didn't change.

~*~

The moon was waning. They didn't know much about the way werewolves worked—the lore was so abundant and so contradictory, it was useless. They knew from the killing pattern of both Madison and Glen that she would change the week before the full moon. They didn't know the exact day it would start.

Two weeks was a safe margin. They had two weeks when they could be sure Madison wouldn't change. After that, they didn't know. But Sam was going to give her those two weeks. She deserved them. She didn't deserve what was happening to her.

The night of the new moon, Sam spent the night with Madison again. In the absolute darkness of the night, she whispered to him. "I just want to live. That's all. I haven't done anything wrong—why should I be punished for what I can't control?"

Sam's whisper sounded like broken glass. "This isn't something that can be fixed. You have to die."

"But you don't know," she pleaded. "You don't know anything about this. How do you know I can't be cured someday? I didn't change one night, but changed the next—maybe there's some way to control it. I could lock myself up, Sam. I could make sure I didn't hurt anyone."

Sam squeezed his eyes shut. "But you could never be sure. You'd have to carry that with you every day, and if you slipped up, people would die. It wouldn't be a life." He thought about his own future, the future his father had believed waited for him, carrying evil he couldn't control inside him. That wouldn't be a life.

Madison looked at him, her eyes black pits in the dark. "Half a life is better than no life at all."

~*~

"You'll have to completely change the way you live," Dean said, all business. "You can't live in populated areas. You have to be far enough away from other people when you change that no one will hear and come looking. You have to lock yourself up securely any time the moon is even close to full. No chances, no cutting it close. You have to do this one hundred percent or people will die."

Madison nodded grimly.

"Sam and I will be back at full moon to make sure. One mistake and we kill you, is that clear?"

"Don't worry," Madison said. "I won't take any chances."

~*~

Sam and Dean stayed with Madison at the next full moon.

She'd moved to the backwoods of Idaho. As far as Sam could tell, she was working freelance over the internet. She didn't talk much, didn't seem to have friends. She looked…lonely.

Sam told himself this was the way it had to be for her. Half a life was better than no life. She would survive. That was enough.

For the next couple of months they made sure they were always in Idaho before the full moon. Madison was taking care of herself, making sure she was secure before the changes. There were no screw-ups, no mishaps. It looked like this was going to work.

The next month they were in the middle of tracking a hellhound, didn't even notice it was full moon until it was over. Madison left Sam a terse voicemail saying everything was fine. Sam finally let himself relax—Madison was still an innocent victim, and they'd saved her life. Dean hadn't thought they could do it, but they'd found a way to save Madison.

~*~

Six months later Sam found a report about five vicious animal attacks in the woods near Elk City, Idaho.

Sam threw away the paper.

The next morning, as they were loading up the Impala, he fished it out of the motel trash can and stuffed it in his pocket.

As soon as they stopped for the evening, Sam did a quick search on the web. Five attacks this month, three last, one two months before that.

He showed Dean.

~*~

It was almost full moon again when Sam kicked open the door to Madison's cabin. He threw the clipped newspaper articles at her.

"I'm sorry, Sam, OK? I'm sorry. But it's not me! I didn't want to kill those people. I don't want to kill anyone. It's this thing inside me. It's _not me_." She stood in the center of the one room of her cabin. The bed was unmade, dishes in the sink, dirty clothes all over the floor. It was so different from her apartment in San Francisco, so different from the driven, focused woman she'd been there. He looked at the cage Dean and he had helped her build in the corner, and at the smear of blood on the floor in front of it. Madison saw what he was staring at.

"The first one was a hunter. He must have heard something, stumbled in, I don't know. But it wasn't my fault. None of this is my fault!"

Sam couldn't say anything. He heard Dean speak from behind him. "If you live, other people die. That can't happen."

"But why should their lives be worth more than mine?" she pleaded. "Don't I have a right to live too? I'm _innocent_."

"Not anymore," Sam said, then shot her in the heart.


End file.
